Satisfice India
I’m pleased to announce that Pradeep Soundararajan is opening a franchise of Satisfice, Inc. in India. Pradeep has been a student of mine for the last few months. I’ve been very impressed with his sheer passion for testing and, more importantly, for his passion to learn to be a better tester. You can see this clearly in his writings. He also has a particular flair for lateral thinking and brainstorming test ideas.
Having a franchise of Satisfice means that Pradeep will have me monitoring and supporting his testing and test training work. He can work much less expensively than I can, because his overhead is so much lower, my job is to assure that he is continually gaining skill so that his standard of workmanship meets my expectations.
Now, I want all of you to give Pradeep a hard time. A Satisfice tester, (as my brother Jon, at Quardev will tell you from working for me for 18 months) is expected to be quantum cut above normal testers. We achieve that not through wishful thinking, but through study and practice.
A Satisfice tester is always ready to be challenged about his work. I would expect you to ask him “How do you know this is good work, Pradeep? What methodology did you use? What alternative methodologies could you have used? What is your coverage and what are you oracles? State your test strategy on one piece of paper. Please explain testing in three minutes or less. What is rapid testing and how does that differ from context-driven testing. Hurry, Pradeep, you are supposed to be a Satisfice tester!”
January 1st, 2007 at 5:31 am
Wish you all the best Pradeep.
I have added your blog to my favorites. I’ll be expecting frequent postings
Erwin.
January 1st, 2007 at 8:50 am
Hey Congrats Pradeep.
My Blog : http://codeinspections.blogspot.com
January 1st, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Congrats Pradeep!
It’s nice to have another Satisfice tester out there.
It would be great to argue with you about testing.
Good Luck!
January 1st, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Hearty Congratulations Pradeep,
Wish you best.
Niteen Yemul
January 2nd, 2007 at 5:25 am
James, but I’m wondering how the questions you suggested to ask him will help to show him being above normal testers at anything but terminology. Which could be learned by rote not study and practice. No offence, but I really want to know how to better recognize exceptional testers
[James’ Reply: I will reply, and then I will show you Pradeep’s reply, which was written with independently of mine (and therefore not dictated to him by rote). You may then make your own judgment.
Rote answers may work when you are taking the ISTQB or ISEB exam, but the kind of skeptical clients we seek expect an interactive conversation. Any rote answer tends to fall apart in a conversation.
Rote answers may be feasible when you know the questions in advance, but we don’t know them. I was just imagining a few for you. But even if we know some of the questions in advance, the answers to those questions are generally context-dependent, not fixed.
Most of the questions I gave are not terminology questions. In fact, only one of them seems to be:
How do you know this is good work, Pradeep? This requires the skill of doing a “good enough” analysis on a test project.
What methodology did you use? To answer this requires a description and explanation.
What alternative methodologies could you have used? To answer this requires knowledge of more than one kind of solution to testing problems. It has to do with breadth of knowledge of testing, and respect for controversy in the craft.
What is your coverage and what are your oracles? This is not requesting a definition, this is requesting a context-specific description of specifically what was tested and specifically how did the tester recognize bugs.
State your test strategy on one piece of paper. This is also context-specific. Test strategy changes over time and from project to project. Writing a test strategy is a challenging process, if you want to do it well on a single piece of paper.
Please explain testing in three minutes or less. This is not merely terminology, this is presentation. The three minute goal forces the tester to leave a lot out of the eplanation, but he must choose what to leave out and how to express the critical ideas.
What is rapid testing and how does that differ from context-driven testing? This is the only terminology question, here. I think it’s possible to learn this by rote, but if you don’t understand it, you won’t be able to deal with follow-up questions.
As for how you recognize exceptional testers. I’ve written about that: to evaluate a tester, test him like a product. One thing I do is get the tester to test for me. Over and over again. And also to talk about testing.
Now, here is Pradeep’s unedited reply. You can tell that English is not his first language. I’m working with him to improve his writing skill for an American audience. But focus for a moment on the underlying message. Is this someone who seems to have ideas? Ideas are the mainspring of testing…
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:03 am
Heartly Congratulations Pradeep.
Wish you all the Best for the new Job.
Regards,
Amol Agare
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 am
Congratulations to both of you!
Maria
January 2nd, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Hi Pradeep,
Congrats man in the first place. You have more challenges that are ahead. Wish you all the best.
Venkat.
January 2nd, 2007 at 7:08 pm
James, your comments above explained away all of my questions, except for ‘Explain testing in three minutes or less’. Who do you imagine a Satisfice tester having to answer that to? I expect the explanation to be context dependent, and am working through it myself and trying to imagine the different situations. Wondering what some of the more unusual places you’ve had to give that explanation are? How have you had to adapt the explanation to different audiences?
[James Reply: People rarely say “three minutes”. But that’s about the attention they will give to the answer, so you should know how to do it. Variations of this question come to testing consultants all the time. What’s special about how you test? What is your test methdology? I don’t understand how you test, can you explain it? Etc. The most interesting situation where I was asked this was during a court case, in a deposition. The next most interesting was when I was trying to convince investors that the company I worked for had a decent test process.
It also come up when you are training a new tester.]
January 3rd, 2007 at 4:26 am
Exactly this was my point. The questions you asked have either a Rote answers (like I use methodology X), a book-size answers or answers that depend on context. No wonder Pradeep answered in context “I’ve been asked this by James Bach, He don’t want the right answer he want to see me critical thinking about possible answers”, no wonder his answers only raise more questions. For example - how do you know if you “stop testing at the right time?”
[James’ Reply: Ainars, I don’t agree that they have rote answers. I think anyone who attempts a rote answer to them will be exposed as a fool.
Also, I don’t think it’s fair to say that his answers “only” raise more questions. They provide useful information while raising more questions. An important quality of a good answer is that it provokes useful follow-up questions. And sometimes, the better answer is to challenge the question itself.
Knowing when to stop testing is an interesting and complex social and technical issue. I’m not surprised that Pradeep did not launch a full explanation of that point! But if you’d like one, I’ve already written several articles about that.]
January 3rd, 2007 at 5:50 am
Congratulations Pradeep!
I have been reading your blog regularly and glad to read James’ announcement about Satisfice India.
All the best bro!!
January 3rd, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Pradeep,
Congratulations! I love your passion for testing. Passions like yours
are rare in this world and should be greatly valued. Go for it Pradeep,
sky is the limit!
yan
January 4th, 2007 at 1:09 am
I love testing. I am currently a software test manager and I really enjoy hands on testing.
January 4th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
I love, well, among other things, software engineering. Mostly because it is done so poorly
by so many people. I lost count how many times I witnessed complete failures from software engineering projects. It is a mystery and something that most people I know have no real answers for. Testing, and/or quality assurance, of course plays a important role in SE so naturally I am interested in QA. But mainly I am highly interested in how these different pieces of puzzles all fit together so that a group of professionals can consistenly deliver software products on time, within budget, and with quality.
January 10th, 2007 at 4:24 am
Hi Pradeep,
saw this announcement on James website,Congrats Man.I have few years of experience in testing but i saw your blog and feel that i am new to testing.Your zeal for testing is infectious.Its a great site..keep blogging..
And congrats again for Satisfice India
January 11th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
congrates I wish you the best of luck. I think you’ll be fine. I have fath
March 1st, 2007 at 6:31 am
Congrats Pradeep. Don’t get surprized to receive this comment after so long time. Rather this congratulation is for being interviewd by Michael J. Hunter of Microsoft for Dr. Dobb’s Journal. Once again you have proved your worth as a *skilled* tester. Keep inspiring us by your exceptional good work in field of S/W Testing…